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GuitarSite.com Guitar News Weekly Edition #98, July 10, 2000 |
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KIRKS CORNER TRUST YOUR DOTS I did a gig a few months ago, in fact I wrote about it in one of these newsletters ("Playing with other people") and the whole time I was on stage, I was aware of a couple of young guys next to the monitor desk staring at my guitar. I think they were helping out as stage hands or something, and they were obviously very interested in something I was doing. I assumed they were budding young guitarists intent on learning something new to add to their bag of tricks, watching my fretboard like hawks. When the set was over they came up and shyly asked me what kind of new gizmo I had on the neck of my guitar, something they could see protruding up from behind. I wondered what the hell they were on about and looked down at my neck to see that the 5 patches of gaffer tape that I use as dots were coming off and sticking up. I felt a bit of a schmuck. The dots on the edge of my early 60's Stratocaster neck were always teeny. As the nicotine smoke years went by, the teeny little dots became darker and darker, until they plain disappeared. I just checked again and they're hardly visible. The dots on the fretboard are also very low contrast. So I use tape. I hate not seeing my dots. Makes me feel very insecure. Nobody talks much about those dots, but all guitars have them, don't they? They are there for a reason: so we can keep track of what the heck we're doing, even if we don't want to admit we rely on them. I don't mind saying it at all: I trust my dots. The 'fretscapes' I have written about over the years, these visions of the fretboard, have everything to do with these dots. Where the music fits, either on or between them, becomes ingrained. Each key or chord has a certain "dot feel" to it -- something too subtle to really put into words, but something that you get to rely on. I guarantee that any proficient guitarist will stumble if you give him or her a guitar with dots in the wrong place. This is not to say that I stare at my neck counting frets, but when I do want to get my bearings, especially for a 14 fret or so interval, I want to see those dots. So I use gaffer tape. Nice and black. A friend of mine, far more fastidious that me, noticed this and was outraged that I would not fix this problem properly. I must admit that when I'm sweating a lot and one of them actually comes off and sticks to my thumb in the middle of a solo, I get the same feeling. He's promised me he'll do it for me. Trust your dots. Just a reminder that I've loaded up a bunch of my mini instrumentals at mp3.com, all of them straight into the computer. Most of them are songs I've started but never finished the lyrics to. I've replaced the vocal line with slide guitar. Others are just nice chord progressions with an improvised slide melody. Lots of dropped d slide. If you'd like to learn more about this great tuning, go to my site. I've got lots of lessons there. http://mp3.com/kirklorange. And feel free to download them too. They're free. Don't forget to drop a line on my guestbook (http://www.lorange.kirk.net) to be in the running for the giveaway PlaneTalk. If you've already got it, say hi anyway. Until next time, all the best from Tamborine Mountain, Australia.
Kirk Kirk has been a regular contributor to GNW, and written some great articles. Here's just a few of the recent ones:
THE HIERARCHY OF MUSIC
HOME RECORDING
RIGHT HAND TECHNIQUE
RHYTHM AND LEAD Search for his earlier ones using the search slot on most GuitarSite.com pages: Search Term "Kirk Lorange" NEXT >>> ASK EDLY >>> |
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